From the Department of Small-Minded Rules.

We are Traditional Catholics. We adhere to the old teaching that the death penalty is Just Punishment.

Pope Francis once said that, “The church sometimes has locked itself up in small things, in small-minded rules.” Quoted in America Magazine a Jesuit radical left rag disguised as Catholic. Not recommended reading.–Ed.

The following was originally posted 10/27/2014. We re-post this today as the pope has made news once again in regards to abolishing the death penalty and has proclaimed he can change the Church’s Magisterium. The Remnant Newspaper (August 2, 2018) has an excellent analysis by Christopher Ferrara of the invalidity of the pope’s claims.

Fidelity and Action blog, October 27, 2014 — In the following article, Pope Francis states he is against the death penalty. He also says he is against life sentences. Our snarky comments are in red.

Catholic News Service. By Francis X. Rocca. 10/12/2014.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis called for abolition of the death penalty as well as life imprisonment, and denounced what he called a “penal populism” that promises to solve society’s problems by punishing crime instead of pursuing social justice.

“It is impossible to imagine that states today cannot make use of another means than capital punishment to defend peoples’ lives from an unjust aggressor,” the pope said Oct. 23 in a meeting with representatives of the International Association of Penal Law.

“All Christians and people of good will are thus called today to struggle not only for abolition of the death penalty, whether it be legal or illegal and in all its forms, but also to improve prison conditions, out of respect for the human dignity of persons deprived of their liberty. And this, I connect with life imprisonment,” he said. “Life imprisonment is a hidden death penalty.”

The pope noted that the Vatican recently eliminated life imprisonment from its own penal code.

Our response:The population of Vatican City is only 839 people.

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, cited by Pope Francis in his talk, “the traditional teaching of the church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending lives against the unjust aggressor,” but modern advances in protecting society from dangerous criminals mean that “cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity are very rare, if not practically nonexistent.”

The pope said that, although a number of countries have formally abolished capital punishment, “the death penalty, illegally and to a varying extent, is applied all over the planet” because “extrajudicial executions” are often disguised as “clashes with offenders or presented as the undesired consequences of the reasonable, necessary and proportionate use of force to apply the law.”

Our response: The pope and the United Nations desire the U.S. to defer to other countries. It’s the New World Order trending.

The pope denounced the detention of prisoners without trial, who he said account for more than 50 percent of all incarcerated people in some countries. He said maximum security prisons can be a form of torture, since their “principal characteristic is none other than external isolation,” which can lead to “psychic and physical suffering such as paranoia, anxiety, depression and weight loss and significantly increase the chance of suicide.”

He also rebuked unspecified government involved in kidnapping people for “illegal transportation to detention centers in which torture is practiced.”

Our response: Being a victim of heinous violence is a form of torture.

The pope said criminal penalties should not apply to children, and should be waived or limited for the elderly, who “on the basis of their very errors can offer lessons to the rest of society. We don’t learn only from the virtues of saints but also from the failings of errors of sinners.”

Our response: Okay, then let’s free the elderly priests who raped children from prison!

The pope said some politicians and members of the media promote “violence and revenge, public and private, not only against those responsible for crimes, but also against those under suspicion, justified or not.”

Our response: If the pope is so concerned about public violence against criminals, then he needs to be reminded of the essential requirement in a civil society: PRISONS! Baffles the mind!

He denounced a growing tendency to think that the “most varied social problems can be resolved through public punishment . . . that by means of that punishment we can obtain benefits that would require the implementation of another type of social policy, economic policy and policy of social inclusion.”

Our response: The pope wants us to invited members of ISIS and the Black Panthers to tea. See “Radical Chic” by Tom Wolfe. Using techniques similar to those of racist regimes of the past, the pope said, unspecified forces today create “stereotypical figures that sum up the characteristics that society perceives as threatening.”

Our response: Is the pope implying that jihadis are not threatening?

Pope Francis concluded his talk by denouncing human trafficking and corruption, both crimes he said “could never be committed without the complicity, active or passive, of public authorities.”

The pope spoke scathingly about the mentality of the typical corrupt person, whom he described as conceited, unable to accept criticism, and prompt to insult and even persecute those who disagree with him. “The corrupt one does not perceive his own corruption. It is a little what happens with bad breath: someone who has it hardly ever realizes it; other people notice and have to tell him,” the pope said. “Corruption is an evil greater than sin. More than forgiveness, this evil needs to be cured.”

In 2011, Sister Prejean was caught in a rare moment of uncharacteristic candor in a one-on-one interview caught on video.

HOST: “In your view could there ever be any crime that are so heinous enough to deserve death?”

PREJEAN: “Maybe there are crimes that are deserving of death. But the big moral question we have is who deserves to kill the person who did the crime?”

I can guarantee you that Sister Prejean has never admitted this at any of her thousands – yes, thousands – of public appearances advocating to abolish the death penalty over the last 3 decades. Someone ought to inform the bishops and priests of her shocking admission.

US Conference of Catholic Bishops wants 100,000 Syrians admitted to US this year

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is calling for the U.S. to take in 100,000 Syrian refugees this year alone, with no regard for the fact that the Islamic State said last February that it would soon flood Europe with as many as 500,000 refugees, or for the fact that an Islamic State operative recently boasted that among the flood of refugees, 4,000 Islamic State jihadis had entered Europe, or for the fact that the Lebanese Education Minister said that there were 20,000 jihadis among the refugees in camps in his country, or for the fact that 80% of the migrants who claim to be fleeing the war in Syria aren’t actually from Syria at all, or for the fact that German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said that the Islamic State was sneaking into the country with the refugees and was active in the refugee camps. Why would these “refugees” think they had to come to Europe on false pretenses?

We are greatly appalled and concerned Trad Catholics. A most blessed symbol of our salvation is Christ Crucified.

From CNA

He noted that during his life, Fr. Espinal [the guy who made the protest art] had sympathies with the Marxist interpretation of Liberation Theology, which at that time was widely popular in South America.

Taking a “hermeneutic” approach to the crucifix – one that involves an interpretive act of understanding with an emphasis on dialogue– the Pope made an analysis of the times, saying that Fr. Espinal “was an enthusiast of this analysis of the Marxist reality, but also of theology using Marxism.”

Read Fr. Malachi Martin’s expose of Marxist “theology,” The Jesuits. It is an eye-opener and explains the background of today’s crisis in the Church.

Celebrity Nun Called As Witness for the Defense of Boston Muslim Terrorist Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Helen Prejean: the only Catholic nun the NYT finds credible.

We at Fidelity and Action do enjoy seeing Sister Helen once again in the national spotlight. Notice how the terrorist is no longer portrayed as a terrorist in the media, below. No, he’s either a former college student or the Boston bomber.

1. “He was found guilty of all 30 charges, many of which carried the death penalty.”

2. “Defense attorney Judy Clarke, who has a track record of successfully defending killers against the death penalty, announced Sister Helen as one of two ‘potential’ witnesses on Wednesday while the jury was not in the courtroom.”
3. “The movie Dead Man Walking brought Sister Helen to national prominence. It charts her support for Elmo Patrick Sonnier, a convicted rapist and murderer who attempted to overturn the death penalty. ”

1. “The nun provided to jurors the first evidence of Mr. Tsarnaev feeling regret since he was captured and charged with killing three people and wounding 264 others at the 2013 marathon, as well as killing an M.I.T. police officer three days later.

2. Wearing street clothes, a silver cross dangling from her neck, Sister Helen Prejean, a Roman Catholic nun and prominent opponent of the death penalty, testified on Monday that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the convicted Boston Marathon bomber, had expressed sympathy for his victims.

3. Asked how his voice sounded as he spoke, Sister Prejean, 76, said: “It had pain in it, actually, when he said what he did about ‘nobody deserves that.’ I had every reason to think he was taking it in and he was genuinely sorry for what he did.”

4. “Their cross-examination was to point out what was obvious: She’s against the death penalty, and she’d be up there arguing against it even if it were Adolf Hitler,” said David Hoose, a defense lawyer in Northampton, Mass., who has argued death penalty cases. Still, Mr. Hoose said, Sister Prejean was a valuable witness because she carries moral authority and because if Mr. Tsarnaev felt any regret, she could convey sincerity about it better than he could.

1. “Her testimony was very significant. Remember, Tsarnaev has been sitting basically stone-faced through just about this entire trial, leaving jurors with absolutely no clue what’s going on in his head. So this witness was the first to shed a little light.”

2. “She says she met with Tsarnaev five times and that when they spoke about his crimes and his victims, he said, quote, “no one deserves to suffer like they did.” Sister Helen says that Tsarnaev lowered eyes, his voice sounded pained. She says she could see the emotion in his face, and she says she came away believing that he’s, quote, “genuinely sorry for what he did.” I should say that her testimony was clearly limited legally. There was a lot she couldn’t say, but she did manage to signal to jurors that there might be – might be – some remorse.